Airport land sold in shady deal

Bratislava Airport

It turns out that the company that was chosen to build a private car-park next to Bratislava Airport, which is state-owned, won the privilege without having to go through a tender.

Just a few days before the parliamentary elections on 12 June, when it seems the former government was more active than ever, Bratislava Airport exchanged restricted-use and fragmented lots of land near its runway for prime-site land in front of the airport. The lucky company in the deal was Airport Parking.

The company is said to be linked to entrepreneur Vladimir Poor, who is allegedly associated with the party Smer-SD, which was in government at the time. Real estate experts say the airport may have lost several million euros in the deal, which saw Airport Parking get its hands on lucrative and concentrated land next to the airport terminal in return for its almost useless plots.

“The land that the airport got is in areas where airport expansion is planned,” said Bratislava Airport spokeswoman, Dana Madunicka.

In addition to a good barter, the company was allegedly supposed to receive also EUR 90,000 from the airport, but through its generosity the company waived this bonus.

MP for SDKU-DS, Ondrej Matej, says that this just goes to prove that the transaction was shady, and the Transport Ministry now wants to examine the contracts before deciding on further steps.